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Tidy man & Sordon, 

Worcester, 7//ass. 


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WILLIAM RICHARD JONES 


//^TP^HE most important man in the Carnegie 
scheme.” Such is the high praise given 
11 to William R. Jones. He was par excel¬ 
lence a captain of industry. His father 
was a clergyman, who came to this country from 
Wales in 1832 and was located in Pittsburgh and 
Hazleton, Penn. William, his eldest son, was born 
in 1839. His father died when he was quite young, 
so that he was forced to begin work with a very 
limited schooling. 

He was apprenticed to the Crane Iron Company 
of Catasauqua when only ten years of age, first in 
the foundry and afterward in the machine-shop. No 
small part of his subsequent success is due to his 
thorough training in these two fundamental branches 
of the iron industry. 

By fifteen he was earning journeyman’s wages. 
In 1856 we find him at Philadelphia working as a 
machinist with I. P. Morris & Co., then in Clearfield 
County, during a commercial depression, as a lum¬ 
berman and farm hand. In 1859 he is a machinist 
in the employ of the Cambria Iron Company; three 
months later he goes to Chattanooga, Tenn., em¬ 
ployed by a blast-furnace company, where he re¬ 
mains until 1861, when, by the breaking out of the 
Civil War, he is forced to flee with his young bride. 

A year later he enlists in the 133d Pennsylvania 
Volunteers, is wounded, but rises to the rank of cor¬ 
poral. At the expiration of his enlistment he returns 
to the Cambria Iron Company, but soon raises a 
company of men and, as their captain, re-enlists in 
the 194th Pennsylvania Volunteers, and serves to the 
close of the war. The latter part of the time he was 
Provost Marshal for the city of Baltimore, a position 
requiring both tact and firmness, and for which ser¬ 
vice he received honorable mention. 




Then he returns again to Johnstown to be assist¬ 
ant to George Fritz, the chief engineer of the Cam¬ 
bria Iron Company. In this position he is busied 
in designing and constructing the famous Bessemer 
plant and blooming mill, under the direction of two 
of the most brilliant of American mechanical engi¬ 
neers, Alexander L. Holley and George Fritz. 

Following the death of Fritz, Jones resigned from 
the service of the Cambria Company. So well had 
he done his work that Holley, who had designed 
the Edgar Thompson Steel Works at Braddock, 
selected him to be the master mechanic. Holley 
was at this time consulting engineer of the Asso¬ 
ciated Bessemer Manufacturers, and acquainted 
with all the principal steel men. He looked upon 
Jones as the best practical administrator among 
them all. 

Later Jones became the general superintendent, and 
still later, in 1888, consulting engineer to all the Car¬ 
negie companies. In these years he erected their 
great Bessemer plants, the remarkable series of 
blast furnaces known as A, B, C, D, E, F and G, and 
the gigantic rolling mills; he met and overcame all 
the contingencies of daily operation and intense 
competition that culminated in making these estab¬ 
lishments the finest in the world and a transcendent 
financial success. 

A dozen patents stand to his credit and all have to 
do with the manufacture of steel. The first 
was granted in 1876, a device for operating 
Bessemer ladles, and the last, in 1889, considered 
to be the most important, a method for mixing in 
receiving tanks the metal from blast furnaces. 

But his fame does not rest upon these few patents. 
Like all mechanical engineers engaged in the 
practical administration of affairs, he invented and 
devised far more than he patented. Invention was 
to him a necessary incident of daily routine. 

These vast concerns are not born full grown. En- 


gineers’ plans are never perfect on first presentation. 
Errors are to be corrected, omissions supplied, inter¬ 
ferences adjusted, methods simplified by incessant 
watchfulness and practical mechanical judgment. 

There is also a struggle for existence and a sur¬ 
vival of the fittest among steel plants as among ani¬ 
mals. A comparison of daily reports, a searching 
of costs, the stimulus of competition—all compel 
constant improvement or defeat, and time has shown 
that Jones was to be trusted to keep the mechanical 
equipment of the Carnegie plants ahead of all com¬ 
petitors. 

Here were thousands of men employed, and the 
selection and management of men measures, in large 
degree, the success or failure of any enterprise. 

In these things Captain Jones was pre-eminent. 
Under his control vast forces were co-ordinated, 
warring elements harmonized, selfish interests domi¬ 
nated, and the whole organization vitalized, until the 
production of a single blast furnace went up before 
his death from 350 tons a week in 1872 to nearly 2800 
tons per week. 

One of the wires to this Carnegie system was 
rivalry between heads of departments. Rewards 
were given for record outputs, these were made the 
standard, and woe betide him who fell short. 

It was competition, bitter and relentless, engender¬ 
ing strife and hard feeling, and yet none dared to let 
up on the terrible pace. 

Jones was not responsible for this. He was too 
high spirited to stand it himself, and when his pro¬ 
tests were unheeded, he sent in his resignation again 
and again, only to be won back; he was too valuable 
a man to lose. 

“You can imagine the abounding sense of freedom 
and relief when I go aboard ship and sail past Sandy 
Hook,” once said Andrew Carnegie to Captain 
Jones. “My God, think of the relief to us,” ex¬ 
claimed Jones. 


When Carnegie offered him a partnership he de¬ 
clined, but accepted “a thundering big salary,” 
$50,000 a year, when salaries of ten were few and far 
between. 

When Carnegie was taken to task by some of the 
other steel manufacturers for paying such a salary, 
he responded that he would be glad to pay double 
if they knew of any more like him. 

Under Jones’ management men worked as never 
before or since. His unerring mechanical judgment, 
his organizing ability, his unfailing energy, his re¬ 
sistless enthusiasm, won their hearts, and they re¬ 
sponded loyally as to a recognized and trusted mas¬ 
ter. 

In his dealings with them Jones was considerate 
and sympathetic, at the same time forceful and de¬ 
termined. He attempted an eight-hour day at the 
Edgar Thompson, but when it was shown that it was 
falling slightly behind the others, it was vetoed. 

When called upon to resist extreme demands his 
opposition was open and above board, so that even 
in the very fiercest of the conflict he retained the 
good will of his opponents. 

It was characteristic of him, at the time of the 
Johnstown flood, to take several hundred workmen 
from Braddock by special train. The track was 
destroyed ten miles from Johnstown, but Jones 
marched the men overland, and was the first outside 
assistance to reach the scene of destruction.. .Under 
his trained direction, they rendered invaluable ser¬ 
vice in the work of rescue and relief. 

He was a member of the American Institute of 
Mining Engineers, and, although the leading iron 
and steel expert of the country, persistently refused 
to accept office or read papers. He was also a mem¬ 
ber of the American Society of Mechanical Engi¬ 
neers, and of the British Iron and Steel Institute. 

He was a man of considerable property, of stal¬ 
wart figure, and attractive face. His striking por- 


trait shows a remarkable likeness to that of the 
greatest of Roman commanders, Julius Caesar, save 
only the eyes, which belonged to Jones alone, keen, 
alert, laughing and honest, characteristic of the real 
man. 

His tragic death was a striking close to such a 
life. Blast furnace C had been in trouble for several 
days. The regular organization was unable to bring 
it under control. Captain Jones assumed personal 
charge of affairs, and while directing the work, an 
explosion occurred in the furnace which caused a 
rush of gas and molten cinder to fly in all directions. 
Several men were badly injured, and he was not 
only horribly burned, but was blown against an 
iron cinder car, fracturing his skull. He suffered 
intense agony for two days, and died Sept. 28, 1889. 

In the resolutions offered by the managers of the 
Carnegie properties, it was said: 

“We would not forget that the commander fell at 
the head of his men, at the post of duty, amid the 
roar of the vast establishment which was his work 
and is his monument.” 


DWIGHT GODDARD. 


Copyright 1903, D. Goddard. 


THESE SHORT STORIES 

OF ENGINEERS 

ARE ISSUED TO KEEP OUR NAME BEFORE YOU. 
We have sent out the following: 


JAMES WATT,* 
MATTHEW BOULTON, 
ROBERT FULTON/ 
GEORGE STEPHENSON, 
JAMES NASMYTH, 

SIR HENRY BESSEMER, 
SIR WILLIAM SIEMENS, 
ALFRIED KRUPP, 

ELIAS HOWE, 


SIR JOSEPH WHITWORTH/ 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, 
JOHN FITCH, 


JOHN ERICSSON. 


J i 1 i N 

OLIVER EVANS/ 
JOHN STEVENS, 
ELI WHITNEY, 


THOMAS BLANCHARD, 
PETER COOPER, 


ALEXANDER L. HOLLEY. 


*Out of Print. 


Others to follow. 


WYMAN & GORDON 


NOV 14 190S 


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